Ed, I was quite touched by your story about how you made those creative 'toys' - I bet you grew up to be quite a handy and productive gentleman.

Bee, I played with those tinker toys too. My neighbor's son, who was considered 'rich' in those days (dad was a plumber lol) occasionally let us play with his stuff, usually around Christmas. ONCE in a rare while he let us play with his Lionel train set, which was terrific. Mostly I liked arranging the little houses and trees around the tracks.

Another toy I liked was those little things where you moved numbers or letters around - tiles in a square- to make them go in order. Must have been the pre-curser to Rubik's cube.

Oh , and now I just remembered two other toys I loved- one was when you took a magnet and 'drew' a beard on a man with magnetized filings. Another was that standard draw with a no lead pencil and then if you lift the sheet, the drawing would disappear. Anyone remember them? I realize as I am writing this, that I didn't care so much for the 'girly' stuff (tho I still wish I could have had a Barbie Doll) but more the artsy stuff. Which I still do today.And those simple 'creative' toys we bought or made probably did far more for our inventiveness than all the video games today.